Red Flags and Long Nights
by qcd rockets fall
Summary: mixed emotions, drunken hookups, and a late night phone call


summary: this is the semi-fake "take it as you will" follow up to _this boy_. it's set three years later and in Marco's perspective.

Marco's tired, oh-so-tired. It's two-or-three AM. The exact time doesn't really matter when it's this late at night.

Finals are tomorrow, no, today. He's followed a strict schedule for the past few weeks, studying every night. Even on weekends. Even during "Will and Grace." Even when his boyfriend's being ridiculously needy and horny to the point where he stuck his hand down Marco's pants in middle of the library.

That was five days ago. If he ever got over the embarrassment, Marco's sure if he went they'd let him back in. Except he reasons it'd be kind of hard to study in a spot where he'd been publicly groped...

Not that studying is doing him any good now. The words on the pages are blurring, and he's confusing dates and people. It's to the point where his professor is probably going to wonder if he had been heavily drugged or intoxicated during all of the lectures.

"Oh jump me," he says to his empty room. This is the fifth time he's unintentionally read the same paragraph. None of it is making any sense.

He picks a word off the page and stares at it.

Inhabitants.

Nothing. He's blanking. Marco thumbs through the pages of a heavily-abused copy of Merriman-Websters.

One who dwells or resides permanently in a place, as distinguished from a transient lodger or visitor; as, an inhabitant of a house, a town, a city, county, or state.

"No crap."

Inhabitants.

He looks up swear words in his English-French dictionary, and then the statistics of population of third world countries in his roommate's atlas. (Where is the asshole, anyway? Probably getting wasted.) There are 793,000 inhabitants in the Republic of Djibouti, and they speak French too. Djibouti's calling code+253. He whips out his cell phone from his backpack and starts to dial.

What the heck is he doing? Marco's gone delirious. Oh, wait. He's got a voicemail from a number he doesn't recognize. Must have called when he was in the bathroom three hours ago tearing his hair out and calling his mirror-reflection a complete, sucky failure.

It goes: "Hey Marco, it's Greg. Remember me from Degrassi?" It's Craig, he's just slurring his words. "I'm at this party and I saw some guy and he kinda reminds me of you. And you know, I've been thinking a lot about Degrassi and you and--" Background party noises. Drunken frat boys. Someone's puking. "Yeah, I think it would be cool if we could like meet. You know, get together. Talk about the old times... Look, I gotta go. Call me when you get this message. I'm serious, when ever you get it. Okay, bye. Hold the fu-"

And that's it.

Curious, he cancels his call to Djibouti and dials Craig's cell.

"Hello?"

"Craig, it's Marco. It's the middle of the night, but you said--"

"I know and I'm sorry, I'm sorry I called you. I shouldn't've. It was wrong. I'm hanging up" He sounds pathetic and miserably.

"Wait--is something the matter?"

"Oh God Marco, I just did it. I just had sex with this complete stranger. I went to this club and I picked somebody up. Right in the middle of the parking lot, we did it in the car."

Marco laughs. "Most guys would be happy for a one-night stand."

"You don't understand, they saw us leave together. And I can't even play it off because he gave me a hickey. A stupid hickey. This is so high school drama. My girlfriend, she's going to kill me."

"Wait, wait, wait. He?" Marco almost chokes on the word. "Craig, since when are you bi?"

"I'm not. Well, I don't think I am. I like girls. And I like guys. I like guys a lot, actually. I liked you a lot when we were at Degrassi--"

"Just how trashed are you? On a scale of one to ten?"

"A twelve drunk. Marco. I miss you, a lot." Craig sounds like he's going to cry.

Marco sighs, " And you're kilometers away and I've got finals tomorrow so I can't come to the rescue. Who else can you call?"

"When I was with him, I was thinking of you. I've got all these pictures, you know, of--"

Marco ends the call by throwing his cell at the wall. He screams real loud and pushes all of his books and notebooks and pens off his desk and onto the floor. Then he goes to bed, and sleeps without dreams.

In the morning, his boyfriend is waiting at his door, smiling, with a thermos of coffee and a danish. They share a long kiss, and walk to class together holding hands.

Why? Because Marco + Spinner is love.

Craig can not factor into that equation. Though he tried, in high school. Craig followed them everywhere, taking pictures with that dumb camera. He wouldn't take a hint and he almost got hard evidence of Marco and Spinner kissing once...

"You've got frosting on your chin," Spinner goes, and then wipes it off with his lips.

Marco smiles. Craig who?


End file.
